


Fairest Thing

by immoderateWritings



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Homestuck Valentine's Exchange, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Troll Swan Lake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13813617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoderateWritings/pseuds/immoderateWritings
Summary: “Some say an army of horsemen,some of footsoldiers, some of ships,is the fairest thing on the black earth,but I say it is what one loves.”“I tell yousomeone will remember usin the future.”-Troll Anton Chekhov. You are rather sure that that is precisely who said those two things up there. Almost probably definitely.Or, in which Joey Claire realises she Likes Ladies while getting wrapped up in the rebellion effort, with accompanying Adventures





	Fairest Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rezi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rezi/gifts).



> Hello! This was originally written for the Homestuck 2018 Valentine's Exchange, with the request: "I’d love to see Joey Claire from Hiveswap realising that she Likes Ladies and getting a cute troll gf, maybe even with some added quadrant exploration. Any (or multiple!) of the Troll Call ladies are fine by me."
> 
> The work was originally posted to Tumblr, but has been cleaned up and expanded a bit for its Ao3 posting!

**Andante non troppo**

You wake up to a mysterious grumbling sort of roar, and the sounds and smells of, of all things, popcorn! The sun is either just starting to rise or is just about to fully set -- you realise you aren't entirely sure which! Also, do trolls even have an east and west? -- and for sleeping on a beanbag chair in a room that was otherwise empty save for one of those weird troll slime things, you feel pretty good! You know, all things considered. Those miles of rushed travel on deercatback while fleeing from a burning city just hours ago didn't stop being a thing or anything.

  
  


You hear the now significantly less mysterious grumble again, and realise something else that didn't stop being a thing was you being STARVING.

  
  


You follow your nose and ears and end up in the combo kitchen and dining room, where you see one of the several trolls you'd been rapidly introduced to last night. You...aren't really sure which one this was, exactly, but she's got bull-looking horns and she's holding a metal box by tongs over a flame on the stove top, which explains all the hopefully-actually-popcorn noises and oh hey she's seen you too now.

  
  


“Well ain't you up early. Come on and grab a bowl, bet you're real hungry!”

  
  


You know who your new favourite troll is. Sorry, Xefros!

  
  


She hooks you and herself both up with spoons and a bowl of what you really hope is popcorn, and has you sit down while she pours what you recognise as lusus milk into both bowls. Huh! Whatever, it smells AMAZING. She sits down across from you at the table and starts eating, and you're about to take a bite before you suddenly remember...pretty much all the troll food you saw in Dammek's house. You pause.

  
  


Cultural sensitivity sure is hard! You have no idea how to phrase this politely, so you just ask.

  
  


“Uh. There aren't any bugs or anything in this, right?”

  
  


She looks up at you, down at your bowl, and then her gaze sort of slides up above your head before she looks back at you and shakes her head, smiling.

  
  


“Naw,” she says, “Just corn and milk.” She thinks for a moment. “Corn's a kind of plant we've got here, y'see, it's...oh, okay.”

  
  


She trails off into silence and resumes eating, because by now you're already halfway done with your bowl, spoon in one hand and a thumbs-up in the other. Being made by the other, whatever. You know what corn is, thank you very much, and while you hadn't really thought to eat it like this before, this is still very easily the best-tasting breakfast you've ever had in your life. And because it's too early and you're too hungry to be sad, you're not even going to examine that statement any further!

  
  


You're on your second bowl when you hear a loud  _thud_  and the sound of something breaking from some room upstairs.  You jump a little, spoon poised halfway to your mouth, and your current favourite troll startles in her new seat near the window, which she'd been sitting by and sort of staring out of since finishing her own breakfast.

  
  


A minute or two later, an exhausted-looking troll with macaroni horns in a black jacket and shorts shuffles in, blinking blearily behind smudged glasses and clutching a notebook under her arm and a bag in one hand that sounds kind of like a windchime when it shifts, if a windchime was made out of broken porcelain and had the disembodied handle of a coffee mug poking out of it. The bag, that is, not the windchime, though you suppose you could work with both. You think you remember her as the one who welcomed you and Xefros in last morning? You were kind of out of it and not really paying too much attention, to be quite honest!

  
  


She looks at both of you again, almost looking a little surprised, before she blinks again and says, “Uh. Skylla. Joey Alien. Good evening.” Then she shuffles into the kitchen, grabbing a new mug from a cupboard and starting to fiddle with a machine on the counter after tossing the bag in the garbage can. An item explicitly for storing trash, which is clearly emptied out on a regular basis to help keep everything clean in here! Sorry, the novelty of being in an actually clean house still hasn't worn off yet.

  
  


“Evenin' Tyzias,” says Skylla in her seat near the window, before she goes back to staring out of it. There's a twig in her hand now that you're not really sure where it came from, but you're not going to bother about that right now.

  
  


Although you  _are_  going to bother about that greeting. You just now realise that the view outside the window has been getting darker, not brighter. You knew you were tired, but you hadn't expected to literally sleep the entire day away!

  
  


And because you're the most eloquent person, you just sort of blurt that idea out.

  
  


“Wait, evening? How long was I asleep?”

  
  


Tyzias comes back, tossing her notebook onto the table and sitting where Skylla had sat before, across from you. She's got a steaming mug of...something...in her hand.

  
  


From which she takes a long  _slurp_  from before responding, “Uh, a while? You guys arrived pretty close to sunrise yesterday, you cut it kind of close.”

  
  


She opens her notebook and starts flipping through it, stopping somewhere near the middle. You're not sure how to respond to that, so you just take another bite of cereal. When Tyzias looks up next, your confusion must be showing on your face.

  
  


“You look confused.” She says. You nod. “Okay, so, Alternia -- that's the name of our planet, if you didn't know that yet -- has an extremely lethal sun. So, most of the living creatures bigger than plants are active at night. Does that make sense?”

  
  


Huh. That was surprisingly sensical. You nod again, and were about to say something generally along the lines of 'Hey is there literally anything on this planet that isn't awful and murderous' when Skylla pipes up from her chair, still staring out the window. From the looks of things outside the window, the rest of the city is just starting to kick into action, lights turning on in buildings.

  
  


“So what's our plan now?”

  
  


Tyzias takes another  _slurp_  from her mug.

  
  


“Xefros informed me as to what Joey Alien informed him about Tetrach Dammek's and Outglut's, uh,  _situation_.” She says without looking up, taking out a pen from her shirt pocket and starting to write in the book, pen in one hand and mug in the other. “By which I mean him being missing, presumably on an alien planet, and it burning, in that order. So, while we're waiting for everybody else to show up or otherwise report in, we just sort of chill, I guess. We should have another ally properly joining us within the week, at least”  _Slurp._ “And we hope the Heiress doesn't decide she wants another selfie backdrop in the meantime.”

  
  


Skylla nods, and continues to silently chew on her twig thing.

  
  


You nod, and finish not really silently chewing on your last bite of popcorn cereal thing.

  
  


Tyzias sets the mug down, tucks her pen behind her ear, and pulls out a communicator pad from her pocket. Idly, you wonder if she can balance stuff on top of her horns. She taps at it a bit, looking like she's cross-referencing something on it and her notebook.

  
  


She says suddenly, “You guys want to go see a show later?  _Wherein We Find a Waterfowl on a Body of Water_...” She trails off a little, glancing at you momentarily before shrugging and continuing, “...is in town. I know someone, I can get us all tickets for pretty cheap.”

  
  


Skylla shrugs. “I ain't perturbed either way. Never been to a fine art show.”

  
  


Something about that title seems to remind you of something, but you can't pin it down. So, you say, “I don't know what that is, but it sounds like fun!”

  
  


Tyzias nods. “It's muscular theater, I figured we could show off some fine Alternian culture while we're waiting to overthrow, like, half of it.” Wait what kind of theater was that? But Tyzias continues, and now she's looking right at you. “I mean, if you're gonna be part of our rebellion, you should know the good as well as the loads of bad, right? Gotta take care that you know what you're getting into.”

  
  


...is Tyzias a little more blue in the face than she was when she walked in? Like, literally. After a glance at the sign on the button on her jacket, you suppose that that particular phrase might not cross cultural borders especially well! You wouldn't want to accidentally be culturally insensitive, and phrases about colours seem like they might have a little more meaning here than back on Earth. Between that and something about the tone in her voice, you feel a little funny when you agree.

  
  


“Great!” She says, standing up faster than you'd seen her move so far. You have no idea what's changed in the room, but it definitely feels different in here! “I'll go set that up, then. You guys, uh, have fun, I'll let you know later tonight about those tickets.” She grabs her notebook and mug, tucking one under her arm and drinking from the other as she walks towards the door.

  
  


Whatever's in that mug, though, there is no way that it's breakfast! So you call out to her before she leaves the room entirely.

  
  


“Tyzias, aren't you going to get breakfast? You should eat something too!”

  
  


She freezes at that, and you're not sure why. She looks over her shoulder at you, and  _oh okay wow that is definitely a blush when did that happen_.

  
  


She says, “Uh, I'll eat later, I'll be fine. But, um, thank you for your concern, Joey.” And then she absconds from the room quite quickly indeed.

  
  


You're not entirely sure what just happened, and now  _you're_  blushing, and now Skylla is looking at you from her chair near the window just sort of smirking.

  
  


She sees you looking at her, and her smirk widens before she gives you a slow, solitary thumbs-up.

  
  


You have no idea what she's talking about, so you say, “I have no idea what you're talking about,” and then you go about straightening up your bowl and the kitchen and try to not think about pretty aliens you mean how pretty alien this whole planet is, instead choosing to focus on literally anything and everything else. Like how the different steps and shuffles and such mean that Xefros and the others are probably awake.

  
  


Your name is JOEY CLAIRE and hahaha, trolls sure are weird, aren't they!

* * *

  
  


**Tempo di valse**

  
  


Wow you sure like how nicely your hood sits on your head with these fake horns on it. You didn't even get a second glance by the usher handing out programs at the door. And then Tyzias had walked you, Xefros, Skylla, and a troll that had reminded you  _way_  too much of Jude for you to want to talk to her quite yet past all the posters in the lobby, where  _oh._  Just.  _Oh._  And so you'd drawn your hood tighter around your head, because you really didn't want to have to see  _any_  of that.

  
  


You all reach your seats as Xefros finishes explaining that the art is just sort of a highblood thing, and that it's totally normal to think it's weird and gross so long as you don't do it to a highblood's face. He seems pretty blasé about it, but you're pretty sure he's about as red as you are. Personally, while you're not really opposed to seeing nature things be natural, what with the whole vet thing, you didn't think that that would ever mean animals that were quite so...anthropomorphic? You really hope your lusus experiences stay more on the deercat/slothdad side of things. You open the program to read it, and then close it up pretty quickly again after getting overwhelmed by the wall of words that Tyzias informs you is the “real” title of the show, including some madeup-looking words like “moirail” and “kismesis” that seem to show up...a lot. Maybe you'll ask Tyzias about them after the show, she seems like she'd be able to explain.

  
  


You look at the curtain on the stage, and get a funny feeling that's entirely unconnected to the lobby posters. You're not sure how to describe it, seeing the curtains sway, the whisper of the show to come.

  
  


And then the lights dim, the curtains part to reveal a troll costumed in bright green, and you involuntarily shudder as the unprompted thought appears in your mind that it's going to be a hell of a show.

  
  


Evidently “muscular theater” means “dance show”, and you feel an incredulous sort of joy as you realise you're watching troll  _Swan Lake_ as the prologue ends, with the troll playing the tragic heroine Odette ending up with a circlet with a huge pearl in the center of it representing the curse, instead of just being turned into a bird. In retrospect, it being troll  _Swan Lake_ seems a fairly simple deduction that you could have made, even though you're not sure if there are  _actually_  any swans in this production? And then one of the servants in the first scene, played by a surprisingly fluid-moving robot, gets suplexed after knocking over a tray because  _of course_ , and you are increasingly sure of your theory that literally everything on this planet is awful and murderous. Even the things that are already awful and murderous! Just sometimes, they're slightly less so.

  
  


All things being said, it's still pretty much  _Swan Lake_ , only sometimes instead the dances are wrestling matches. Or full-on brawls? And you're increasingly sure that this isn't  _quite_ the plot, but you pretty handily decided you're not gonna let that bother you! It's pretty confusing at first trying to keep up with what's actually happening, but the stage lighting and costuming sure help as you piece together that it's not really about Prince Siegfried this time around, but that it's a lot more about Odette and Odile.

  
  


At seeing Odile's unexpected appearance in Act 2, accompanied by a sudden burst of wild cheers from the audience, you decide that you might like the troll version better.

  
  


“The performer's name is 'Nihkee Moolah'.” Tyzias had leaned down in her seat to whisper to you, tapping a finger beneath a name in the program that's probably the one in question. “She's one of the best performers the role of the Black Murderous Waterfowl has ever seen, holding the position four sweeps and counting, only being challenged once for it. It, uh,...did not end well for her competitor. Rumour has it that she won't stop until she's got the opportunity to perform privately for the Heiress.”

  
  


As if to demonstrate the point, the dancer launches herself up into the air and lands on the point of a robotic supporting dancer's spear. You'd heard about dancers having prosthetic legs back on Earth, so it was pretty cool to see!

  
  


And then her very-much-not mechanical leg comes down and literally crushes the robot's head beneath her heel, and  _oh._ While you don't feel comfortable cheering loudly, because, y'know, alien, the rest of the audience hoots and hollers at that like they were at a cage match. Nihkee then proceeds to do a number of breathtakingly graceful arabesques on the handle of the spear, before somersaulting off of the haft and aiming an elbow drop vaguely near the troll playing Odette, as the stage lightning shifts to lots of sharp shadows and dark colours, unlike all the soft pinks that had been on stage for Odette and Siegfried's waltz.

  
  


As Act 3 continues onwards towards the penultimate conflict, you've picked up the system pretty well, you think. The dark lightning is used more for straight-up fights, which usually features a lot of the actual troll dancers breaking apart robots, which you're  _pretty_  sure is meant to be symbolic of the dancers fighting each other directly. Meanwhile, the red and pink scenes tend to look a lot more like what you're used to! Lots of precise, graceful motion, not so much robots exploding. There's a lot more of the dancers actually dancing with each other in those scenes, too, which Tyzias helpfully informs you is significantly more technically demanding for the highblood performers.

  
  


“For indigobloods like most of the cast, crushing robots is pretty easy; being able to dance with another troll without crushing  _them_  is a lot harder.” She says, and you nod idly as on the stage Nihkee is currently oh-so-delicately waltzing with Troll Prince Siegfried. You actually recognise this scene as pretty similar to the original! Nihkee's character, Odile, has been enchanted by the same wizard that cursed Odette at the start of the play, and is impersonating Odette to deceive Prince Siegfried for magical and romantic purposes. A lot of the choreography in this scene actually parallels the earlier waltz between Siegfried and Odette, too, which you can highly appreciate! But where Siegfried and Odette's dance had been entirely in pink light, ending with a chaste bow and curtsy between them, the dance between Siegfried and Odile here is a lot more...close, and while the light had started the same shade of pink, every few steps it had seemed to get a little redder.

  
  


And then you hear Skylla, Xefros, like half of the audience, and most certainly yourself  _gasp_  as the music swells, the lighting drops to a kind of dark red that hasn't been used anywhere else in the play, and oh gosh that's a dip-kiss basically right in front of Odette, who'd just sort of arrived at the scene. Dramatic! You sure have a lot of feelings going on about this play, but from the sound of things so do the rest of the audience, so you're mentally chalking that up to you being appropriately appreciative of an alien culture. Cultural appreciation sure is easy!

  
  


And then the lighting shifts fully back to the black scheme, Nihkee gracefully twirls over to Odette and dip-kisses  _her_  too, low enough that the circlet falls off with a clatter, before dropping her -- you wince, that looked like it stung, even if it was only like a foot off the ground -- and absconding with a grin on her face, and then suddenly everybody's basically losing their shit cheering  _even more_. As the curtains close and the house lights go on, you're shocked by the realisation that everybody's cheering because the play's  _over_. ...OK. OK. So, not what you expected.  _Swan Lake_  usually ends with the Prince and princess -- the good one, not the evil one working for the evil sorcerer -- getting together, not...well, whatever it was you just saw! But. And now the curtains are opening again for cast bows, so you're clapping and trying to not imagine that Nihkee had glanced your group's direction during her combined solo bow and cartwheel demonstration. You're increasingly confident in your ballap theory, if for no other reason that if ballet, wrestling, and gymnastics can be mixed, then you see no reason why not ballet and tap. Especially when everything in the play was combined with such _style_! Strength and grace, the best of both worlds!

  
  


On the way back, the others are all talking excitedly about the play, but you kind of zone out about two seconds into Tyzias going off about the merits of “bloodless performance” and then Troll Jude is talking about the cultural significance of the sorcerer in green at the start, which you can  _kind of_  appreciate since he was literally the only character wearing green, but then you zone out again at “lunacracy”. On your part, now you're mostly thinking about the last scene and one of the conversations with Xefros you'd had the other day.

* * *

  
  


**Larghetto elegiaco**

  
  


“So, Joey. How do you feel after your first encounter with troll culture?”

  
  


You're all playing cards now, after dinner. You're slowly getting used to troll food, and even though 99% of it still looks entirely horrifying, that last 1% has been pretty alright so far! Better than eating a bandaged, desiccated body, at any rate, spice mix or not.

  
  


Even though the robot destruction felt a little gratuitous at times, you still had fun! So you say, “I had fun! But, uhhh. I think I didn't quite follow the plot? The love triangle wasn't bad, but I'm not sure how the ending was supposed to resolve it? It felt like the play just sort of...stopped.”

  
  


There's a brief moment of silence, then suddenly Troll Jude and Tyzias are both trying to talk at once.

  
  


“First, the scene at the beginning is rumoured to be based on a real historical incident where a troll made a deal with--”

  
  


“--while the play focuses on the romantic intrigue, it's actually an excellent example of early Alternian quadrant law and tradition, and--”

  
  


And oh gosh you feel like you're trying to read the title of the play again. You try to keep up as the two trolls go back and forth, you really do, but you quickly become even more lost with how literally _alien_ all this is as they eventually start mostly talking with each other about the potential meanings and contexts and metaphors in the play. Your lostness must be readily apparent, because when Tyzias takes a break from her current point about the “ramifications of the subtle caste privilege differences shown by the different-hued actors” to look up at you, she pauses and goes quiet, looking a bit sheepish. Troll Jude quickly follows suit, and now the room is full of awkward silence and they're all kind of looking at you again.

  
  


Then Skylla says, kind of softly, “Joey...do you know what a quadrant is?”

  
  


You shake your head, and the trolls all just kind of  _look_  at each other. And before you know it, the card game's been halted, the cards are being used as visual representations, and you basically have just enough time to wonder if you're going to regret getting into this before they all start talking again.

  
  


Evidently, troll  _Swan Lake_  is considered to have a very satisfactory and happy ending for everybody involved, more or less. Huh! Who'da thunk it. And soon you're getting the gist that trolls are allowed -- “Mandated by Imperial decree, past a certain age.” Tyzias clarifies -- to have multiple, different significant others, but all operating differently. Somehow.

  
  


It's Troll Jude -- her actual name's Boldir, you're starting to feel a little bad just calling her 'Troll Jude' in your head -- surprisingly, who summarises the weird black one best. “Basically, black feelings are you can see how the other troll can be better, and it really bugs you to see that they  _aren't_ , so you try to push them. Keep them on their toes, always getting better, or at least not letting them stagnate. And if it's healthy, they're doing the same back to you. And so both of you are always at your peak, ready to deal with the world.”

  
  


And then Xefros chimes in, holding up a card with a diamond on it. “But sometimes it can be hard to keep going day after day, which is what a moirail is for! If a kismesis helps you deal with the outside world, a moirail helps you deal with yourself. If it weren't for Tetrarch Dammek, I'd--”

  
  


Xefros is cut off by a sudden splutter from Tyzias, who sets down her mug and begins coughing. After a moment, she looks back up, looking from Xefros to you for a moment before gesturing with her hand for the conversation to continue.

  
  


It's late by the time they're all done. After talking about how the characters in the play had all represented a relatively complicated quadrant arrangement, the trolls had decided to dig up other stories to help illustrate the concepts more simply. Evidently, the higher up the hemospectrum, the more complicated and nuanced these things are “supposed” to be? Traditionally, anyway, which only highbloods especially care about, but thinking about all the stories you've heard about rich people wedding on Earth, you suppose that makes sense? By the end of it, almost everybody's yawning.

  
  


“And speaking of tradition,” Tyzias continues, on her sixth cup of whatever it is she drinks all the time, at which point Skylla gets up and stretches.

  
  


“Nope, I'm out. Mornin', y'all.” And she moseys out of the room after giving you a sly look that you're not sure how to interpret. Everybody else is standing up too, now, and you think you hear Boldir mutter something like, “Let's save that lesson for tomorrow, Entykk.” before it's just you and Tyzias and the room.

  
  


You're pretty tired, too, now that you think of it. Your head's still spinning a bit from the evening of romantic exposition!

  
  


And then Tyzias looks at you for a moment, and says, “Joey? You should go to bed too, didn't you say your species is normally supposed to be active during the day? I'm sure you must be really tired trying to adapt. Besides, it's been a long night.” She's got that light blush again. And after a moment, everything  _clicks_  into place all at once.

  
  


... _OH._

  
  


Now  _you're_  blushing. _A lot._ Because. You're pretty sure this pretty troll wants to friend-date you? If that's how that works? And then Tyzias is blushing a lot more and wow you're really not sure what to make of all of this oh hey she's talking again.

  
  


“I, um. Mean that in a...strictly platonic sense. Because, uh, you just got taught a whole bunch of things all at once. So now's probably not a good time to talk about this topic. In particular. I mean. So maybe we should talk about it later?” She pauses and goes to drink from her mug, even though you're pretty sure it's empty. She keeps fidgeting with it in her hands as she talks, though. “And I'd thought you and Xefros, but, evidently not, so.  And you've got an entirely new perspective on things, and you think violence is  _bad_ , but you're literally in the middle of a really dangerous rebellion where you don't know what's going on, so...”

  
  


And she kind of trails off. You make a decision.

  
  


You say, “I guess I'm a little tired, but uh. You can keep going, if you want somebody to talk to right now. Even though I think you should get some sleep too, because I think you sometimes get so busy looking at all the big things that you. Um. Need some help with the smaller things? That's just sort of the impression I'm getting. We could. Maybe go talk about that, if you want?”

  
  


And that's how you both end up back in the beanbag chair, where you learn she'd given you her bedroom without even telling you, and she'd apologised for “being crass”, but that was the softest thing she had in the house and she had literally no idea how you'd react to a “recuperacoon” or “sopor”. You learn that the slime-thing recuperacoons are troll  _beds_ , and you make her promise that tonight she'll actually go to sleep in hers, instead of working through the day. To which she'd blushed, and agreed.

  
  


You told her about missing Earth, and you might have cried a little when she hugged you and said that she was sure Jude was okay, he sounded like he knew how to take care of himself, even by troll standards! She told you that the cornerstone of her new legal theory was that “Nobody  _needs_  to die! Especially not just for being born the wrong colour!” and she cried a little when you hugged her and said that that just sounds  _normal,_ that there’s nothing crazy-sounding about that at all.

  
  


Your name is JOEY CLAIRE, and you think you now have an alien girlfriend.

* * *

  
  


**Rondo**

  
  


The next evening, you wake up when Tyzias enters the room, mug already in hand. Her hair's vaguely damp and all frizzy-looking from what you're assuming is a shower, and you think that she doesn't look nearly so tired as she has for the past few days!

  
  


When she sees that you're awake, Tyzias smiles at you and goes over, sitting next to you. Her hand is casually resting on yours as she talks with you, which is adorable and wonderful and oh right your alien girlfriend's talking to you.

  
  


“Good evening. How'd you sleep?”

  
  


You both talk for a bit, not really saying all that much. You both laugh when you tell her you remembered the book report that you had due for school, and she suggests that maybe all the talk about literary themes last night is what prompted it. That would make sense!

  
  


After a little bit, she squeezes your hand -- you squeeze back! -- and says, “By the way, we'll be getting another guest within the next week. Her codename with us is 'Luctator', talking with her is actually how I got the tickets in the first place.”

  
  


She nods at your pairs of dance shoes sitting near the door as you both stand up. As nice as it would be to keep talking, you've got a day to get ready for and face!

  
  


“I think you two might get along well.” And she looks over her glasses at you, still smiling, before she continues.

  
  


“Anyway, breakfast's probably going to be ready pretty soon.”

  
  


You think you can hear sizzling and popping from the kitchen. You are so ready for breakfast, and even if this entire planet is _mostly_ murderous and awful, you're feeling a lot better about it and your odds of getting through it alright. You're going to be alright.

  
  


So you smile back at her, and say, “See you there.”

* * *

  
  


_"If you say in the first chapter that there is [someone pretty], in the second or third chapter [they] absolutely must [be smooched]. Because, seriously, that isn't too much to ask, right? I guess cuddling and emotional catharsis are fine too though? I_ guess.”

-Acclaimed historical slam poet Sappho Lesbos

  
  
  


 


End file.
